Temple

by Matthew Reilly

  “There’s more than one?”

  “My first marriage didn’t exactly work out. Turned out he didn’t share my career ambitions. We got divorced about five years ago.”

  “Oh.”

  “But I’ve recently remarried,” Lauren said. “And it’s been great. Real nice guy. Just like you, in fact. Lot of potential too.”

  “How long?”

  “About eighteen months now.”

  “That’s great,” Race said politely. In truth, he was thinking about the incident he had witnessed earlier—Lauren and Troy Copeland kissing passionately in the back of the Huey. He recalled how Copeland hadn’t been wearing a wedding ring. Was Lauren having an affair with him? Or maybe Copeland just didn’t wear his ring . . .

  “Did you ever get married, Will?” Lauren asked, yanking him from his thoughts.

  “No,” Race said softly. “No, I didn’t”

  “SAT-SN report is coming through,” Van Lewen said from a computer terminal on the wall of the ATV.

  He, Cochrane, Reichart, Nash and Race were now standing with the two German BKA agents—Schroeder and the blond woman, Renée Becker—inside the eight-wheeled all-terrain vehicle. It was parked close to the river, not far from the western log-bridge and the muddy path that led up to the fissure, in anticipation of their nighttime assault on the temple.

  Lauren had already left the ATV for the citadel, with Johann Krauss in tow behind her.

  Just then, Buzz Cochrane returned to the ATV with a handful of sloppy light-brown mush. The smell of it in the confined space of the vehicle was putrid.

  “There ain’t a single monkey out there that I could catch to get its piss,” Cochrane said. “Guess they get out of here before nightfall.” He held up the brown mush in his hand. “I was able to get this, though. Monkey shit. I figured it’d be just as good.”

  Race winced at the smell of it.

  Cochrane saw him. “What? Don’t want to smear yourself in shit, Professor?” He looked over at Renée and smiled. “Guess we’re lucky it ain’t the professor who’s going in there, then, ain’t we?”

  Cochrane began to apply the monkey excrement to the exterior of his fatigues. Reichart and Van Lewen did the same. They also applied it to the rims of the narrow slit-like windows of the ATV.

  While Race had been reading the manuscript earlier, Nash had got the other civilians to set up a base of operations inside the citadel. While they had been doing that, the four remaining Green Berets had been hard at work trying to fix the surviving Huey. Unfortunately, they’d only managed to repair the chopper’s ignition ports. Repairing its damaged tail rotor had been more difficult than Cochrane had at first anticipated. Complications had arisen and it still wouldn’t turn over and the Huey couldn’t fly without it.

  Then, with the onset of dusk, Nash decided that the retrieval of the idol had to take priority. The Rangers had been taken away from the chopper and brought over to the ATV, where Race had briefed them on the wet idol incident in the manuscript.

  As Race did exactly that, Nash ordered Gaby, Copeland, Doogie and the young German private, Molke, to remain in the citadel.

  He had said that it was a necessary part of his plan for seizing the idol to have most of the team stationed inside the citadel when the cats arrived in the village—while he and a few of the Green Berets remained in the ATV, closer to the riverside path that led up to the temple.

  Race—who had only just finished briefing the Green Berets on the wet idol incident—was to join them in the citadel immediately.

  “SAT-SN is in,” Van Lewen said from the computer terminal. “Satellite imagery should be coming through any minute now too.”

  “What’s it say?” Nash said.

  “Take a look,” Van Lewen said, stepping aside.

  Nash stared at the screen in front of him. The image on it showed the northern half of South America:

  NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE

  EXPEDITED TASK NO. M61994I54

  SAT-SN PRELIMINARY SURVEY

  PARAMETERS: 82.00°W-30.00°W; 15.00°N-37.00°S

  DATE: 5 JAN. 199916*936 P.M. (LOCAL PERU)

  ‘What the hell—?” Nash frowned.

  “At least the immediate area is all clear . . .” Van Lewen said.

  “What’s it all mean?” Race asked.

  Van Lewen said, ‘The straight lines represent the five main commercial air corridors in South America. Basically, Panama acts as a gateway to the continent, with commercial flights usually going direct from there to Lima and Rio de Janeiro and then from those two cities down to Buenos Aires. The squares represent aircraft in our quarter outside the regular commercial air corridors.”

  Race looked at the screen—saw the three clusters of squares hovering over the north-western quarter of the continent.”

  “What do the letters and numbers mean?”

  Van Lewen said, “The circle just above Cuzco—the one with ‘Nl’ written underneath it—is us. It stands for ‘Nash-One,’ our team here at the village. N2, N3 and N4 are our air support choppers, en route to Vilcafor from Panama. But it looks like they’re still a good way out.”

  “What about the other squares?”

  “R1, R2 and R3 are Romano’s choppers,” Nash said.

  “But they’re so far to the north,” Van Lewen said, turning to Nash. “How could they have overshot the mark so badly?”

  They’re lost,” Nash said.

  “They must have misread the totems.”

  Once again, Race wanted to know who this Romano person was, but he just bit his tongue and remained silent.

  “And these?” Renée said, indicating the three squares out over the ocean on the extreme left of the screen.

  “NY1, NY2 and NY3 are U.S. Navy signatures,” Van Lewen said. “The Navy must have a carrier out there somewhere.”

  “No sign of the Stormtroopers?” Schroeder asked.

  “No,” Nash said somberly.

  Race’s watch ticked over to five o’clock. With the harsh black storm clouds rolling in overhead, the late afternoon sky had become unusually dark. It might as well have been night.

  Nash turned to Van Lewen. “How are we for vision?”

  “Satellite imagery will be with us in about sixty seconds.”

  “Delayed or real-time?”

  “Real-time infrared.”

  “Good,” Nash said. “We should be able to get a clear picture of those cats as they come out of the crater and head into the village. You all set?”

  Van Lewen stood up. Beside him, Buzz Cochrane and Tex Reichart hefted their M-16s across their chests.

  “Yes, sir,” Cochrane said, casting a sideways wink at Renée. “Cocked, locked and ready to rock.”

  Race cringed.

  Cochrane leered at the petite German woman with a bully’s confidence. It was as if his gun—dripping with its laser sights, M-203 grenade/grappling hook launcher and barrel-mounted flashlight—and his combat uniform somehow made him Mr. Irresistible.

  Race hated him for it

  “Satellite imagery is coming through,” Van Lewen said.

  At that moment, another computer screen on the wall of the ATV glowed to life.

  The image on it was in grainy black-and-white, and at first Race couldn’t tell what it was.

  The extreme left-hand side of the screen was completely black. To the right of that was a section of blurry gray hash, and next to that was something that looked like an inverted horseshoe—in the center of which was a series of small square dots and one large round dot near the apex of the horseshoe.

  At the base of the screen was a wide band of darker gray. Next to the wide band of dark gray was a small dark boxlike object. Two tiny white blobs moved away from the small box toward the large round dot at the apex of the horseshoe.

  And then it hit him.

  He was looking at the village of Vilcafor.

  The horseshoe shape was the gigantic moat that encircled the village, the dots inside it the huts and the c
itadel. The large section of blackness on the left was the rocky plateau that housed the temple. The blurry gray hash—the rainforest between the plateau and the village. And the band of dark gray at the base of the screen—the river itself.

  The small dark box beside the river, Race realized, was the ATV in which he now sat, parked alongside the western log-bridge.

  He looked at the two blobs on the screen hurrying from the ATV to the citadel. Then he spun around and looked out through the door and saw Lauren and Krauss trotting quickly through the fog toward the citadel.

  Oh—my—God, he thought.

  This was a picture of Vilcafor taken from a satellite hundreds of miles above the earth—in real-time.

  This was now.

  Nash spoke into his throat mike. “Lauren, we’re all set over here. You in yet?”

  “Just a second,” Lauren’s voice replied over their intercoms.

  On the viewscreen, Race saw the two white blobs that were Lauren and Krauss disappear inside the round dot that was the citadel.

  “All right. We’re in,” Lauren said. “You sending Will over?”

  “Right now,” Nash said. “Professor Race, you better get on over to the citadel, before it gets fully dark.”

  “Right,” Race said, moving for the door.

  “Hold it a second . . .” Van Lewen said suddenly.

  Everybody froze.

  “What is it?” Nash said.

  “We got company.”

  Van Lewen nodded at the viewscreen.

  Race turned, and on the harsh black-and-white viewscreen saw the dark blob that was the mountain-plateau and the horseshoe-shaped village.

  And then he saw them.

  They were in the section of blurry gray hash to the left of the horseshoe—the rainforest in between the village and the plateau.

  About sixteen of them.

  All coming from the direction of the plateau.

  Sixteen ominous white blurs—each one possessed of a long slinking tail—stealthily making their way through the foliage toward the village.

  The rapas.

  The thick steel door of the ATV slid along its rail and slammed with a loud thud.

  “They’re early,” Nash said.

  “It’s the storm clouds,” Krauss’s voice said over the speakers. “Nocturnal animals don’t use clocks, Doctor Nash, only the level of ambient light around them. If it’s dark enough, they emerge from their hiding holes—”

  “Whatever,” Nash said. “So long as they’re out, that’s all that matters.” He turned to face Race. “Sorry, Professor. Looks like you’re staying with us. Lauren, seal up the citadel.”

  Over at the citadel, Lauren and Copeland grabbed hold of the fortress’s big six-foot doorstone and rolled it into a groove that had been cut into the floor of the structure’s doorway.

  The doorstone was roughly rectangular in shape, but with a curving rounded base that allowed it to be rocked easily in and out of its groove inside the doorframe. The fact that it was set in a groove on the inside of the fortress’s walls meant that any external enemies couldn’t hope to budge the great stone from the outside.

  The stone rolled into place—although Lauren and Cope-land deliberately left a small crack of air between it and the doorframe. It was important to the plan that the cats be able to detect them inside the citadel.

  After all, they were the bait.

  Inside the ATV, everyone stared intently at the live satellite image on the viewscreen.

  The cats came in two distinct “teams”—one team coming directly from the plateau to the west, the other swinging up and around from the north.

  Race felt a chill as he watched their bodies—glowing white on the infrared—their tails curling and uncurling slowly behind them.

  It was disturbing, he thought. Disturbingly coordinated behavior for a pack of animals.

  The cats crossed the moat at various locations. Some went over the western log-bridge, others just leapt softly onto the fallen tree trunks that littered the dry moat-bed and then hopped effortlessly up onto the other side.

  They entered the village.

  Most of the rapas, Race saw, headed straight for the citadel and the scent of the people inside it.

  Just then, however, he saw a lone, white blob on the screen appear alongside the stationary ATV.

  Race spun instantly to his right—and saw the enormous black whiskers of one of the cats right outside the slit-like window next to him!

  The rapa snorted once, registered the foul-smelling monkey excrement that had been smeared on the sill of the slit Then it ambled off to join the others at the citadel.

  “Okay,” Nash said. “All of the cats appear to be converging on the citadel. Lauren, what’s happening over there?”

  “They’re all over here. They want to get in, but the citadel’s sealed tight. We’re safe in here for the moment. You can send the boys out now.”

  Nash turned to the three Green Berets beside him. “You ready?”

  The three soldiers nodded.

  “Then get to it”

  And with that, Nash pushed opened a pop-up hatch in the rear of the ATV and Cochrane, Van Lewen and Reichart—their helmets and clothes smeared all over with the putrid brown monkey shit—climbed up and out through it. As soon as they were out, Nash quickly shut the hatch behind them.

  “Kennedy,” he said into his mike. “Anything on the SAT-SN?”

  “There’s nothing within a hundred miles of here, sir” Doogie’s voice came in from the citadel.

  As Nash talked, Race stared intently at the satellite image of the village.

  He saw the pack of cats gathered around the citadel. Saw their slithering tails, their cautious, inquisitive movements.

  At the same time, however, on the bottom of the screen, he saw three new blobs sneak out from the ATV and race westward, across the western log-bridge and away from the village, toward the dark mountain-plateau.

  Cochrane, Van Lewen and Reichart.

  Going after the idol.

  The three Green Berets burst through the veil of mist that covered the riverside path and raced toward the fissure. They were running fast, breathing hard. All three of them wore helmet-mounted cameras.

  They came to the fissure.

  It too was cloaked in a duck gray mist. The three soldiers didn’t miss a step. They dashed into it at full speed.

  In the ATV, Nash, Schroeder and Renée were all watching the video monitors intently, watching the feed coming in from the three soldiers.

  On the monitors, they saw the walls of the fissure streaking by at phenomenal speed. On the wall-mounted speakers, they heard the three soldiers’ heavy panting breaths.

  Race stood a few paces away from the video monitors. He didn’t want to get in the way.

  It was then, however, that he noticed that Nash and the two Germans were now watching only the pictures coming from the three helmet cameras. Their interest in the soldiers’ mission was paramount, and as such, they were completely ignoring the satellite image screen.

  Race turned to look at the satellite picture.

  And then he frowned.

  “Hey,” he said. “What the hell is that?”

  Nash glanced around idly at Race and the satellite monitor. But when he saw the image on the satellite screen, he suddenly stood bolt upright.

  “What they fuck—’

  On the far right-hand side of the satellite image—on the eastern side of the village—was another cluster of blurry gray hash that represented more rainforest, the forest that led to the edge of the tableland and the greater Amazon Basin.

  Nobody had paid it much attention before because nothing had been in it

  But there was something in it now.

  The section of blurry gray hash of the right-hand side of the village was now littered with tiny white blobs—easily thirty of them in total—all of them converging quickly on the village.

  Race felt his blood run cold.

  Each blo
b was distinctly human in shape, and every single one of them was carrying what appeared to be a gun.

  They came out of the rainforest silently, with their machine-guns pressed firmly against their shoulders, ready to fire but not firing yet.

  Race and the others were now watching them intently through the ATV’s slit-like windows.

  The intruders were all dressed in black ceramic body armor, and they moved with precision and speed, covering each other smoothly as they leapfrogged forward in perfect, silent unison.

  The rapas gathered around the citadel turned as one as they caught sight of their new enemy. They tensed to attack and then they—

  Didn’t move.

  For some reason, the rapas didn’t attack these new intruders. Rather, they just stopped where they stood and stared at them.

  And then—just then—one of the intruders opened fire on the rapas with an assault rifle that looked to Race like something out of a Star Wars movie.

  An unbelievable amount of bullets flared out from the gun’s rectangular muzzle and ripped one of the cats’ heads to shreds. One second the cat’s head was there, the next it just erupted in an ugly splash of exploding flesh and blood.

  The cats scattered in an instant just as another one of their number was torn to pieces by the savage had of gunfire.

  Race peered out through his window, tried to get a better look at the gun in the intruder’s hands.

  It looked remarkable, space-age even.

  It was completely rectangular in shape, with no apparent gunbarrel. Indeed, the barrel must have been concealed somewhere within the gun’s long rectangular body.

  Race had seen these guns before, but only in pictures, never in real life.

  They were Heckler & Koch G-11s.

  According to Race’s brother Marty, the Heckler & Koch G-11 was the most advanced assault rifle ever built.

  Designed and built in 1989, even now—ten years on—it was still twenty years ahead of its time. It was the Holy Grail of firearms as far as Marty had been concerned.

  It was the only production weapon in history to fire a caseless cartridge. Indeed, it was the only handheld firearm in the world known to contain a microprocessor—principally because it was the only firearm in the world complex enough to require one.